Movie Theaters: Isn't this obvious?

i saw a TED Talk a while back with Seth Godin talking about how things are 'broken'. (see TED Talk here: http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_this_is_broken_1.html)

he brings up movie theaters being broken in that the majority of their profit is made on concessions yet there are rarely enough people working the concession stands to serve the number of people that want to buy things.

i was having a discussion with my friend Josh a few weeks ago about this concept (he used to work at a movie theater), and we came up with a few solutions, some that we had seen implemented in other theaters and some that we came up with on our own.

here are some easy ways to fix movie theaters without having to hire extra people.

One thing we've seen before is the popcorn pre-bagged by someone and set up in rows so that when someone orders all the person has to do is grab the corresponding size you order and give it to you. going along with this, i've also seen "do it yourself" butter stands for the popcorn, this eliminates the concession people needing to ask whether or not you want butter and/or dispensing it.

another solution to the popcorn problem is having the popcorn machine empty into a hopper and have it dispense popcorn as it is ordered into the bags, much like they do with soft drinks. they could simply hit a button (indicating the size of the popcorn that was ordered) and it would dispense a pre-measured amount directly into the bag/tub. in fact, with this type of machine, the entire process could be automated eliminating the concession person altogether from the popcorn, aside from potentially refilling the machine once it got low. this too could be automated though, in that once levels got low enough it would just refill itself and make more popcorn.

now let's talk about candy. a lot of people will at least buy the overpriced candy at the movie theater. but much like anything else you have to buy at the theater, if the line is too long you will not buy it, especially if you're running late for your movie. solution: don't we already have candy dispensing machines? we see them all the time at malls, grocery stores, cafeterias, waiting rooms, everywhere! they're called vending machines! why don't movie theaters just set up a couple vending machines in the hallways on the way to your movie? long line at the concessions? no problem. i'll just get my candy from the vending machine! on this same note why don't they do the same thing with drinks?

these are just a few thoughts to make concessions more efficient. can you think of any more?

facebook universal wishlist

this christmas season my family utilized the amazon universal wishlist to guide our friends and other family members in choosing gifts for each other. it's a great strategy by amazon in which you can add any item from any online store to your amazon wishlist. it creates a single place for you to keep items you want (as opposed to making a wishlist on every online retail store site) and it keeps people constantly coming back to amazon.com and finding similar or complementary items to go along with what you've added.

well this worked out great and using these lists are now ubiquitous for myself and 2 sisters (as evidenced by one of them updating her wishlist for her upcoming birthday and e-mailing the rest of us about it).

so my mom and i were having a conversation about facebook having an IPO in 2012, when we started talking about their future growth. she suggested that facebook should incorporate a wishlist feature so that you could see all of your 'friends' wishlists simply by viewing a tab on their page. you can already see when your friends have an upcoming birthday so this type of feature would tie in nicely. facebook could partner with amazon as well as other online retailers and even make suggestions based on the individuals' "likes", preferred online stores, "interests", and other wishlist items. not only could partnering with these sites and offering this feature create a bigger use case for facebook, but it also opens up a very interesting business model. they could offer coupons, daily specials, or groupon-like deals and have extremely specific targeted marketing.

all of this is barely scratching the surface of how deep this type of strategy could really go. facebook obviously still has plenty of potential and it will be interesting to see how they grow in the future (especially should they take advantage of this type of opportunity).

p.s. - my mom turns 60 in March. who says older people don't understand social media? ;-)

socrates

back in the 1980's my sisters and i used to play with a "game system" called socrates which taught kids things like math and vocabulary (as well as geography and other subjects with add-on cartridges). here are 2 video clips of it in action, the 2nd of which is a bs "glitch" that happened to me and my mom while playing it after digging it out of storage a few weeks ago.